Copyright Notice

Philosophers, Eating, Ethics

At the recent Metaetahics Workshop in Madison, a philosopher remarked to me that he'd had lunch with six other people, and, to his amazement, there was only one vegetarian at the table! This led me to wonder what the real breakdown of eating practices, and views about those practices, are among philosophers. Hence this poll. Please only answer if you are a philosophy student or teacher. Someone who, e.g., is a vegetarian mainly for health reasons, but also think it is ethically right to be a vegetarian should choose the middle option, since a practice that is ethically right is also "ethically unproblematic." Someone can also choose the middle option if he or she thinks the practice is ethically neutral.

UPDATE: This poll has been remarkably popular; even though it's a Saturday, there have been more than 550 responses in just a few hours. So far, 6% of respondents are vegans, 25% vegetarians, and 69% carnivores--but more than half of carnivores (205, or 37% of all respondents) are concerned that their eating practices might be ethically problematic. Only 33% of all respondents are carnivores with a clean conscience! We'll open this up for discussion on Monday. Just to put those numbrers in perspectives, here are some numbers about the population in general courtesy of Vegetarian Times.

FINAL UPDATE: So with over 2,000 votes, here are the results; I'll open a discussion later today or tomorrow: